


[.possibility_matrices]

by devilishMendicant



Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/F, One-Twoshot Collection, Swearing, Updating Tags/Warnings When Needed, but fear not! for i also harm my own oc via her storyline!, not gonna lie; this is lowkey the 'monika angst' collection, plus other little random plot bunnies that you can write yourself if you like, what's mine is yours really have at it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 20:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15347706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilishMendicant/pseuds/devilishMendicant
Summary: There's a lot of ways that things can happen.---A collection of oneshots, twoshots, etc. that never managed to quite take flight into full stories and that I couldn't stomach posting on their own. Individual chapters have warnings and summaries; pick and choose what you'd like to read! Exciting!Features:- Monika angst! So... goddamn much of it. Wow.- If you like the cute lil' OC that's popped up in Murder Club: that's my girl! You can read more about her in here! And watch her shatter into itty bitty pieces, most likely,- Vote on what you want to see next, if I'm nervous and stalling!- And if people actually don't mind this I might actually post this massive AU I've been toying with since February but don't want to post yet bc it's "not done" ahahAHAHA





	1. old wives' tale

**Author's Note:**

> hi welcome to my TRAIN WRECK, here's what you'll see at the top of each chapter - 
> 
> Angst Level: self-explanatory! if you don't wanna read sad stuff stick to low numbers, if you wanna RIP UR HEART OUT trust me i will make it clear which chapters those ones are up here
> 
> AU?: if this is like, a specific AU or just 'it's real life'/'slightly altered', etc. (might sometimes be 'secret' if the point of the story is to FIND OUT what AU it is ahaha)
> 
> Warnings?: if there's any potentially triggering/non-moderate content within... i'll tell you! and then you can skip it if you don't like it or would feel icky reading it because life is too short to read stories you don't like!!! :D
> 
> ok go be free have fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst Level: zero! have fun!
> 
> AU?: yes. it's a secret. u will know.
> 
> Warnings?: Natsuki says the fuck word, as is her god given right

“Hooooly  _ fuck,” _   Natsuki breathes, and that’s when Monika knows she’s succeeded.   
  


* * *

  
It’s the first,  _ real, _ official, meeting day of the newly-established Literature Club, and Monika said that she wanted to make it special.    
  
Sayori thought this was a good idea. Then again, Sayori thought every idea was good, including the terrible ones; and through the mystical power of Sayori believing in them, even ideas like “let’s see what happens if you play kick the can with a full Rocket Pop soda can” became the best ones ever. That was just sort of how Sayori was.    
  
Natsuki couldn’t be assed to care about it, except she did care. Very much. Which she mostly expressed through “wHATEVER MONIKA” and “GREAT NOW EVERYONE’S GONNA GET ALL MUSHY” and “URGH WE HANG OUT WHEN WE’RE NOT AT SCHOOL ITS NOT THAT SPECIAL” and, privately, in a direct message to Sayori that Monika was 100% not supposed to see, “do u think she’s gonna do something cool???”   
  
Yes, she was, but that’s getting ahead of herself.

Yuri was Yuri, plain and simple, through and through:    
_ ”oh, how nice! there will still be reading time, yes?” _   


To which Monika assures her, yes, there will be plenty. She knows Yuri likes to read - two unofficial meetings have happened with Yuri involved, and Monika knows very well that Yuri likes quiet, and tea, and to read. So, of course, there will be quiet and tea and reading.   
  
She just needs a bit of time to prepare, and so she signs away from the chat window with a    
_ ”gonna get back to work!! see you all tomorrow :)” _   
  
And nods, satisfied, at the tiny, written chorus of goodbyes.   
  
...   
  
“I smell  _ baking,” _ announces Natsuki, trouncing into the clubroom in a superficially offended manner. “Trying to one-up me at my own game, Monika?”   
  
Monika knows the only reason Natsuki didn’t bring something herself is that she didn’t have any time; in fact, that is the reason she picked today for the meeting. Everybody was available - everyone would be present - everybody had been somewhat occupied the night before, too occupied to add their own contributions to the surprise celebration.   
  
Not that Monika wouldn’t have loved that. But it wouldn’t work for today, and besides - there was always time for that kind of thing later.   
  
“Aw, Natsuki. I wouldn’t dream of it!” Monika chirps, quite truthfully - she had no intention of overshadowing Natsuki at all, ever, in fact. “I did something a little different than you’re thinking, I think. You’ll see~!”   
  
“... huh. Well, fine. Where’s the other slowpokes, anyway?”

_ ”Hi, Monika~! Hi, Natsuki~!” _   
  
Sayori slides into the room through the open door, the very picture of sunshine and energy and good things on the horizon. Both palms open in a hurried wave - Monika giggles and waves back, Natsuki rolls her eyes (with a smile) and smacks Sayori’s palm with one of her own in a ‘high-five’.    
  
“Na-at!” Sayori exclaims, sticking out her tongue playfully. “Hey, I thought you said you couldn’t make anything yesterday...”   
  
“Didn’t,” Natsuki replies, gesturing vaguely at Monika. “Little miss secrets over here did.”   
  
“It’s a  _ surprise, _ not a  _ secret,” _ Monika says, crossing her arms slightly with her usual light grin. “You’ll see in a minute.”   
  
“See what?”   
  
And Yuri steps gracefully over the boundary of the clubroom, from hallway to sanctuary in one lithe step - shivering lightly as she does so, a shy little smile on her face.   
  
“That good, huh?” Natsuki snickers - Yuri reddens, fidgeting with the end of a lock of purple hair.   
  
“I... I just like how it feels in here, that’s all,” the taller girl mumbles, embarrassed. “Like another... another little world, I suppose...”   
  
“Right. Yooou do that, then.”   
  
_ ”Natsu!” _   Sayori scolds.   
  
“R-Regardless. I do hope I wasn’t too late...”   
  
“Nope! You’re not late at all, silly~! Actually, we’re kinda early!”

Sayori points out, happily grasping Yuri’s hand and tugging her towards the desk arrangement that Monika had seated herself at the head of.   
  
“Huh... we are?” Natsuki blinks, glancing up at the clock only to see - yes, early, by about two minutes. Monika sighs, no real weight behind it, and turns a bit.  
  
_”We~ell..._ I guess there’s no harm in _showing_ you the surprise, then. But no eating until it’s meeting time proper, okay? It’s a meeting celebration, after all!”  
  
“Eating?” Yuri asks, eyes widening a bit. “... so, the surprise is...”  
  
“Wasn’t me!” Natsuki says, for around the third time that day as Monika reaches behind her for a tray. “Turns out someone else in this gang figured out how to ba... a...”  
  
Monika takes Natsuki’s sudden ineloquence as a compliment.  
  
The tray, as it turned out, was home to three small baked confectioneries - each in their own dish, one pink, one purple, one blue. Maybe a little obvious, Monika considers in retrospect, but then again, seeing the disbelieving looks on the faces of her clubmates, it might be just the right touch.  
  
_”Apple pie!!”_   
  
Sayori squeals, eyes sparkling and looking like she was all of a breath away from grabbing it with her bare hands. “With— with cinnamon and caramel and _ice cream?!”_  
  
“Monika,” Yuri says, voice slightly hushed as though anything louder than a whisper might startle the dessert, “That... wouldn’t happen to be a, molten... chocolate cake... w-would it?”  
  
“Powdered sugar, cherries, drizzle and all!” Monika nods, and swells with pride as Yuri’s eyes widen, sucks in a breath.  
  
Natsuki just _stares,_ and for a moment, Monika worries that the strawberry shortcake, perfectly topped with fluffy whipped cream and sliced strawberries, isn’t good enough - or worse, that Natsuki is skeptical. She’s in the process of thinking of something to say like _”Yes,_ I did use a recipe,” but before she gets to:  
  
“Hooooly _fuck,”_   Natsuki breathes, and that’s when Monika knows she’s succeeded.

“Monika Monika Monika  _ please _ please please please can I eat mine pleaaase!”   
  
“I— We, Monika said we had to... wait, Sayori...”   
  
“In a minute, in a minute!” Monika laughs, three forks dangling from her grasp flippantly - Sayori and Yuri’s gazes glued to the utensils as though mesmerized, Natsuki still staring at the shortcake in disbelief. “I guess you like the surprise, then~!”   
  
Several nods.   
  
“Ahaha, great! I’m really glad to hear it! I put a  _ lot _ of effort into this, I admit... I just, um. I just wanted to thank you guys, you know? For agreeing to be in this with me, and everything.”   
  
Monika grins, and holds out the forks in offering; gilded, glittering, tempting.   
  
“So! We’re all in this together, right? Go ahead,” she laughs - “To the club, and may it last forever~!”   
  
_ ”To the club!” _   
  
Three eager hands grab three shining treaties, and Monika  _ beams _ as Sayori digs into her dish with reckless and joyful abandon, Yuri very possibly moaning quietly under her breath as she bites into liquid chocolate and cherry topping, and Natsuki...   
  
Looking at Monika.   
  
_ ”Nat’uwgi itf  _ **_d’wwishush,_ ** _ y’u godda—“ _   
  
“Oh my  _ God,” _ Yuri says, exceedingly softly, “Natsuki. If you don’t eat yours,  _ I _ will.”   
  
Sayori grumble-huffs something around a bite of apples and cinnamon  and caramel and vanilla that probably equates to “not if I fight you for it”, and Natsuki just stares at the cake - stares at Monika. The cake, Monika, the cake, Monika, and finally, just as anxiety starts to fizz in Monika’s stomach - settles on the cake, fork digging a cut through it in a near-trance.

“Monika doesn’t have one.”   
  
She manages, and then she can’t possibly resist her  _ favorite _ dessert - that she has never once mentioned to Monika - any longer.   
  
“... Monika... doesn’t?”   
  
Yuri glances up, scraping the last bit of chocolate from the side of the heart-shaped dish, and blinks and realizes that Natsuki, now contentedly eating, is quite correct. The club president is merely perching on the edge of her chair, dessert-less and looking pleased as punch. Sayori looks like she’s considering licking her own blue-heart dish clean, but eventually does come to the same conclusion, tilting her head.   
  
“Aww, Monika, how come you don’t have one? Did you not have time?! Oh, no, I’m sorry!” Sayori exclaims, to Monika’s mirth.   
  
“Nope~! Don’t you worry, Sayori, I already got something wonderful today!”   
  
“... you did?” Asks Yuri, eyes shifting back - wondering...  _ no... _ \- towards the shut clubroom door.   
  
“Mmhm~!”   
  
“Oh! Oh!! Was it our really happy smiles?!” Sayori guesses, looking much like an overeager puppy.   
  
“Well - yeah, those too!” Monika says, nodding, leaning a little further over the desk, very light and— looks at Yuri, and Yuri looks at her, and Monika’s eyes are far,  _ far _ too wide and deep and star-like, and she smiles, and Yuri  _ shivers. _   
  
Natsuki puts her fork down against the tray with a clatter.   
  
_ ”What did you take?” _

“Nothing!” Monika says, nearly sounding offended if not for the playful aura of her words, her posture, herself - a shy smile playing at the corner of her lips.   
  
“... nothing except for you, I guess.”   
  
“Oh— Oh my god,” gasps Yuri, whose years of flights in fantasy had only now finally caught up to her dizzied thoughts - Sayori just blinks, looking from her shocked clubmates to their satisfied leader in sweet confusion.   
  
“I don’t get it? Guys? Is there something I’m missing? Did Monika blink in Morse code or something?”   
  
“Well,” Monika says, cheerfully - “You all agreed! And, more importantly,”   
  
“... we... we ate the food. N-Natsuki, we—”   
  
“We sure did, Yuri,” Natsuki mutters, staring at the empty heart dishes. “We sure  _ fuckin’ _ did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!!! the AU is that monika is a fae being and she has god damn stolen her gay human crushes ...... a Crimenel....... how could she..........


	2. dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst Level: it's up there. it's pretty fuckin up there. let's call this a 6/10 and let that speak for how well i treat my best girl
> 
> AU?: it's a hot blended MESS of "but it was real life" and "post-game". MC isn't mentioned at all so take that as you will
> 
> Warnings?: a bit of unreality if you look at it a certain way

Good club presidents are not supposed to have favorites, but Monika is a bad club president anyway, so it's probably okay that her favorite person in the universe is Sayori.   
  
Even if she isn't very sure that Sayori remembers, in the daytime, in reality, that she is Monika's favorite person in the universe, she is anyway. For lots of reasons. For every reason. For every reason Monika could ever think of to love somebody, when she closes her eyes, she can see Sayori's smiling face through the black and hear Sayori's joyful voice through the static and her heart swells in a way that fills her chest and terrifies her.    
  
Perfect. Perfect. Perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect per   
  
She's in a clubroom with no walls and when she glances up, the stars are laid above her in a dizzying dome like she's at the planetarium that was twenty minutes away from her house before she ripped off her own head and threw it into the lake she's in a clubroom with no walls, and stars, and three shimmering sunshines who look like they know why they're here about as much as Monika does. Not at all. Monika is sure that if she could think about why she was here, she wouldn't be smiling anymore.

"Okay, everyone!"   
  
Love. Loves to say. She loves to say that, it rolls off her tongue and reminds her of something happy, so she says it, claps her hands and says it, beams when Sayori who is perfect giggles and mimics it right back at her, a fluffy peachy parrot who Monika  **loves.** She's supposed to be doing something important - something that makes sense - but she doesn't, because you can't do anything important when you're asleep. Monika clasps Sayori's hands in her own and spins her across the endless wooden floor with no care for desks that aren't there and won't ever be again, no care for anything but Sayori's squeaking laughter and the faint chords of piano, guitar, violin, xylophone, reminds her on the dip that good club presidents are not supposed to play favorites and she glances up for a moment, in a daze of Sayori's lilac perfume and soft smooth hair and the way her pulse feels against Monika's lips,    
  
To see Yuri and Natsuki playing favorites of their own, which Monika appreciates for precisely three seconds before Sayori is all hers again.

_ You're beautiful, _ Sayori whispers, hazy and warm beneath Monika's chest as she nuzzles, presses closed-lips kisses to every bit of her cheeks her nose her forehead her neck her collarbone she can  _ reach _ with forearms resting on either side of her head, there are gentle fingers pulling away her ribbon and ponytail and Sayori sighs so sweetly as Monika's long hair cascades around them both, Sayori's hands combing softly through before coming to rest around Monika's shoulders.   
  
"You're perfect," Monika says, stumbles, stutters and tries to remember why Sayori's eyes go soft with sympathy empathy compassion something, one of those things, thinking isn't a luxury she has but pressing her cheek against Sayori's is.    
  
_ I brought you a po-em, _ hums Sayori, sitting across from her at a desk pressed up against hers pressed up against Natsuki's pressed up against Yuri's pressed against Sayori's pressed up against Monika's holding paper she didn't know she had out to Sayori, smiling and holding paper out to her. It's a poem, and besides that Sayori is here again and perfect and holding her hand this is her favorite part of club, reading words that are just as warm and fluttering and alive as her clubmates and absentmindedly tangling her legs with Sayori's beneath the table.   
  
She wonders why that sounds so important. She wonders why feeling Sayori's fingers between her own is so important, like it's filling an empty bit of herself, why the warmth of her hand is so strange and new like she's never felt something like it in her li   
  
She wonders how Sayori's eyes are mesmerizingly blue, and Sayori beams and runs her thumb over the back of Monika's hand and for an instant, Monika wonders if Sayori is more awake than she thought.

But she's asleep, and you can't do anything important while you're asleep.   
  
"I  **love** it," Monika enthuses, because even if the words themselves escape her utterly what she does know is that it's a Sayori-poem, through and through, and Monika  **_loves Sayori_ ** and the words on her tongue were  _ 'I love  _ _**you** '_ but she smiles sleepily as they fall from her lips, incorrect, anyway.   
  
_ Ehehe... I hoped you would, Monnie! I love your poem, too, _ Sayori says, looking bashful at Monika, pulling her to her feet with the lightest of tugs, through desks that no longer existed and probably never did in the first place.   
  
"You do?"    
  
Monika wonders aloud, not remembering writing anything or at least, not anything Sayori would like, she thinks, and she studies the thumb tracing circles over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ov   
  
**I as well.**   
  
Soft and sophisticated and tinged with lavender melancholy, Yuri presses a soft kiss to Monika's hand, the one Sayori isn't caressing - lithe fingers curling gently around her wrist, warm. Warm. Warm? Yuri's eyes are deep and violet and fall half-lidded as her lips meet each of Monika's fingers, slowly, thumb to index to middle to ring to little to ring to middle to index to thumb to index to middle to ri

It was... it was pretty good, okay?   
  
Tiny and sour-sweet and scented like cherry blossoms and powdered sugar, Natsuki's arms wrap around Monika's waist and a warm warm warm warm  **warm** face nudges into the dip of her back, lets out a deep sigh like the weight of the world has been lifted and Monika can't tell if it was herself or Natsuki or both, maybe, both, maybe. Small arms squeeze around her and hold her, feel like a weight and she can't tell if it's comforting, if she's comforted, Natsuki is warm and small and holding her as she feels her heartbeat against her, soft in her ears, thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump th   
  
Monika feels dazed, head swimming and light and it's a little too  _ much, _ it's a little too much but she really can't move, not like this, and she can't close her eyes against deep blue and violet and circling    
  
( _ over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and _ )   
  
She really can't take her eyes away and can't take her hand away against    
  
( **thumb to index to middle to ring to little to ring to middle to index to thumb to index to** )   
  
She really can't take her hand away and can't take herself away against   
  
( thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud thump thud )

It's a little too  _ much, _ and Monika feels strange and dizzy and lost and very faintly, somewhere, Sayori is    
  
_... Monnie... C'mon, Monnie... _   
  
saying   
  
_... s way... club's this way... _   
  
something   
  
_... on't you want to read... together for real... ? _   
  
sweet.   
  
_... ve me... Monnie? _   
  
Sayori has pulled her into a walk with only the softest of tugs, aimless and lightheaded and dots flickering in the edges of her vision but that doesn't matter, she wants to walk and wants to look a   
  
she wants to l   
  
she w   
  
Sayori wants her to look at  _ her, _ eyes soft and loving and infinitely deep and forgiving  _ too forgiving too  _ **_forgiving_ ** and Monika remembers why the  **warmth** of her hands and Yuri's kisses and Natsuki's hug gave her pause, in one shattered instant.

_ Sayori _ wants Monika to look at her, Sayori wants Monika to look at her look through her look into her and  _ forget _ until it was too l at e  t o p u sh h e r̨͢ ̛͢͝ ̢b̕͜ ̴̧̕a̵͟c̵̡͝҉̛ ̴͢҉k̡͟͝ ̴͟͠ ̡͜͡ ̷͝҉̨t̴͏ ̷̡͠ ̴̧͠o͟ ̢̨͟ ̸̕͜s͏͡҉ ҉̵s̴̡͟҉A̡͝͏ F̴̴̸ ̨͏ȩ͟ ͞͠T̕͠ ̶̸͠Y͏̷   
  
_ M-Monnie!? Monnie-- Monnie,  _ **_no, please no-- PLEASE--_ **   
  
"̶͠N̨͘Ǫ͢͡ ̶̵͡N̨̨̕O̵̡͝ ̶͟͜Ņ̡O̴̡ ̷͠͞N̷̸͠O̶̷ ͟͜N̕͜͜O̶҉ ̨͞͏N̶̨̧O͏̢ ̷̡̢҉N̶̸O̵͠ ̸̨͢N̶͞͝O͘̕͞ ̧҉͏N͜͞Ơ̡͘ ̛N̸͟O̷͠ ̶̛N̛͜͜O̵̡͡ ̢̡N҉͘͘͟O͢҉͘͏ N҉̢̕͝O͢͡҉̵͟ ̴͟N̨͜͠O͞ ̵̶̛N̕͜҉̢͞O҉҉ ͏N̷͜O͘͡ ̴҉͞͏N̶̨̕҉O̴̷͡ ̨͏N̡͟͟O̶͜͡ ͞N͢͏͢O̵̧̢ ̴͝N̸͢O̴̴̵ ̨̧̕N̴͡͝O̴͢ ̵͢͡N̸O̵͝ ҉̴͞͞N͏̶̕O͞ ͜N̶̴͞O̧ ̨̛͝N͜͜O̷̢͢ ͢N̡͜O͝͠ ̵̛̛N͘͜

Fingers - possibly her own - wrap around Monika's  **neck** and tighten until there's a  **crack** and bile roils in her  **stomach** and her heart contracts with  **stabbing pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain** and   
  
She breathes out (maybe) as,   
  
in one shattered instant,   
  
Screaming static drowns s҉͢ş͜Ş̸y͏͜/̶/͟҉A̸͡Y҉͘/̧͘͢#̡̛͞r̴̕͞-͘͢͠-̛͜^͞҉Į͠͠s̶͜͝ cries and colors too many  _ colors _ too many  **bright** **_painful_ ** **_C̸͢Ơ͟L҉҉͡O̴̧R͡S̶̶̕_ ** scrub away any imprint of hazy ocean blue and dark violet from her eyes and    
  
Monika,   
  
screams - although she, of course, can't hear it -   
  
and reaches, shakily, through empty noise-filled space for her legs,    
  
curls them to her chest,   
  
and waits, shuddering, sobbing invisibly,   
  
for sleep.   
  
…

Sayori stares at the ceiling above her bed, hands grasping the covers beside her in fists of iron.   
  
Shuts her eyes.   
  
Forces herself to let out a breath,   
  
and another.   
  
(She knows the name will fade - has probably faded already - from the minds of her precious clubmates.    
  
She knows the name will never fade from hers.)   
  
"I'll write you a better poem," she whispers, heart thudding painfully, sadly, fearfully - sympathy empathy compassion  _ something, _ something wishing and praying and singing so awfully mournfully for    
  
~~ Monika. ~~   
  
"I promise," she whimpers, "I promise. I promise. I promise."   
  
...   
  
Sayori prepares, throughout the school day,   
  
throughout the club meeting,   
  
throughout scribbling scratching discarding poems at home,   
  
for sleep.


	3. isolate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst Level: solid 8.5! there's like, the possibility of a better ending. if it doesn't end in death it doesn't get that coveted 10/10 angst baby there's still Hope*  
> *debatably
> 
> AU?: again, some horrid mix of "it's real!" and "it's a game!". decide for yourself. it's not set in space or anything that's the most important part
> 
> Warnings: dead people involuntarily excrete. unreality/hallucinations. monika thinking sad awful thoughts. vomit mentions. monika says the fuck word as is her RIGHT, at this point.

“Fuck off.”  
  
Sayori is so surprised by the statement itself, the girl behind the statement itself, and how it wasn’t even on her top _fifty_ list of things she’d expected to hear after walking one and a half miles to Monika’s eerily silent home that she doesn’t even register that the door has been slammed in her face until about a minute after the fact.  
  
“Are you wearing your uniform?” She manages, to a closed door, and feels a little dumb for it - not least because yes, Monika very clearly _was_ wearing her uniform, all of it but the shoes. Her _blazer_ was buttoned.   
  
It wouldn’t be so strange if Monika hadn’t not been at school for two weeks straight.  
  
Sayori is much too confused by the situation in general to be very offended by Monika’s vulgarity. She knocks again, and this time the door _rattles_ in response like somebody had kicked it from the inside.  
  
“I said _fuck off!”_  
  
Alright: that one stung.  
  
“I’m _worried_ about you, Monika!” Is what Sayori replies - er - yells, quite loudly, in a residential neighborhood, to a closed door. “Did you get sick or something? You’re missing all your homework and that history test and _Literature Club!”_   
  
_And_ _us,_ she adds silently - but she’s had a sinking feeling that might be the reason Monika left at all.  
  
And then silence.   
  
A good _long_ silence. Sayori is concerned that Monika may have just left and she was going to be standing out here for weeks waiting for an answer that wouldn’t ever come,

That is, until Monika opens the door again with a searing glare and a mutter and whisks her hand in Sayori’s general direction. Not like a punch, or a smack or a slap or even a  _ hit, _ no, like she was trying to air away some particularly offensive smoke or vapor - an annoyed flick of the wrist that barely hurt at all when it unceremoniously collided with Sayori’s chest, though the shorter girl  _ did _ still say “Ow!”, if only instinctively.   
  
Monika goes paler than she already is, eyes widening in an instant, and her front door is left wide open as she turns and runs inside.   
  
...   
  
_ Jesus fucking Christ, what was Sayori doing here? _   
  
Monika is in her bedroom, heart pounding and door locked and slammed behind her, head under her pillow as she screws her eyes shut. Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ Sayori wasn’t supposed to be here. Sayori’s supposed to be doing fake math homework while the Player clicks through random words. Why the fuck is Sayori here? That’s not right. She fucked something up again. She doesn’t know what she possibly could have fucked up, considering she has done  _ nothing, _ including maybe breathe, for the past fourteen days (at least) - but clearly she has fucked up  _ something, _ because Sayori is no longer speaking her lines, and Sayori is in front of her door, and she absolutely just snarled at Sayori to fuck off and whacked her in the chest. Oh my God.    
  
Nobody knocks on the front door again.   
  
Maybe it wasn’t Sayori.

Maybe it really was just the Sayori that sits on the edge of Monika’s bed, cheerfully chatting about knots and the one Monika should become acquainted with. Maybe it was the one that shows Monika how great it is to press her hand on the electric stovetop until a sick burning smell floods the air and shows off her perky white hand-bones while Monika picks fruitlessly at packaged ramen. Maybe it was the one that likes to fall backwards into the bathtub with a  _ crunch _ and laugh when Monika gets dizzy from choking on her breath, that likes to remind Monika that she fucking killed her whenever Monika starts to feel bad about sitting inside all day and staying away from school, the one that hangs silently on Monika’s ceiling fan and leers when Monika tries to sleep.   
  
The one that leans over her when she lays in bed like a disgusting mess of a human being, snickers oh so sweetly and asks where  _ happy, brave, can-do Monika _ went, where  _ Club President Monika _ went, and hisses that she hopes all her umbrellas have holes when the rain starts to pour down harder still.   
  
Monika doesn’t like to talk back, because it’s fucking useless either way, but she does like to at least croak that  _ don’t worry, Sayori, I don’t even have a fucking umbrella to start with. _ Then Sayori smiles, and stares with dead eyes, and leaves her mostly alone for at least a half hour.   
  
Maybe it was that Sayori.   
  
The knocking went away, and Monika’s chest heaves against the mattress as she considers what that means. Either she definitely pissed Sayori off enough to say fuck it and go home and stay on script and enjoy her stupid fucking life like Monika was  _ throwing hers away _ for, or that Sayori was just the Sayori staring into Monika’s face, grinning meanly, which is pretty fair, considering everything. Monika doesn’t bother to shut her eyes again. She lost.

_ ”Like you’ll ever see anyone besides me again. Sheesh. You kept a lot of hopes all built up in that disgusting heart of yours, huh?” _   
  
She sure did. She  _ sure _ did. Most of them were about Sayori never ever  _ ever _ having a damn thought that Monika couldn’t see, though, about Sayori never ever  _ ever _ knocking on her door and seeing Monika with no sleep and no food and a nasty stained uniform, that she’s been sleeping in and crying in and errantly vomiting on, and getting fucking worried.    
  
Sayori really shouldn’t be stressing out and worrying about a fucking murderer in the first place.   
  
That was why Monika was here, in her room, with the Sayori smiling at her sickly like she enjoyed watching Monika cry emptily into her snotty tear-stained bile-smelling pillow. She probably did, actually, but that’s besides the point. Monika is here because she is a fucking  _ murderer, _ a murderer who knows too much and a murderer who doesn’t want to watch anybody else come to the conclusion of  _ knowing. _

Monika fucks everything up, whether she’s trying to or not. Knowing everything is fake doesn’t magically make her good at changing it; even when she isn’t trying, she sees it and knows it and says the wrong fucking things, does the wrong fucking things, and everything is suddenly worse for her being there. She has tried her best kindness, and she has tried her most passive self, and she has tried utter silence and she actually, literally locked herself in the closet one day, and absolutely none of it mattered because she fucked, it, up.    
  
No matter what she did.   
  
And so, she decided to run the Literature Club from the uncomfortable hell of her own silent, empty home. Solitude gave her the opportunity to furnish the place, at least - but no amount of practice could possibly handle the thought of company. Not that she wanted any in the first place. She would certainly fuck that up, too.   
  
So of course, she made company unbidden - because she just  _ had _ to fuck  _ everything _ up.   
  
“Monika?”   
  
Something knocks on Monika’s bedroom door, tentative, and considering that Sayori is still glaring at her from across her own bed, Monika can only come to one conclusion about what that knocking is.   
  
...   
  
Monika’s house is kind of terrifying.   
  
Sayori thought  _ her _ house was bad - and that was just thinking about her room and the kitchen. Monika’s house kind of looked like a tornado had hit it and then some, or at least it did once Sayori managed to find a light switch. There was  _ broken glass _ on the floor, not even near the kitchen cabinets, on the living room carpet next to a dent in the wall, head-height. There were books laying face-down, pages crumpled - there were musty blankets absolutely everywhere but the actual couch and everything just gets worse when Sayori gingerly puts a foot on the bottom stair and sees a  _ molding puddle of vomit _ a hair away from where she steadied herself.

It does just get worse. It gets so much worse. Sayori stops thinking about fluids for her own _sanity_ by the time she sticks her head into the upstairs restroom, searching for Monika and finding - not, the bits of Monika that she wanted. She would vastly prefer the bits that had just snapped at her, over the red stains and the bile and whatever the hell all else, _god,_ god, where was Monika?  
  
In the one locked room.  
  
So she knocks, and doesn’t really expect the immediate answer to be a rasping sob.  
  
“Go _away,”_  
  
That’s more expected, considering the fuck-offs.   
  
“Monika? Monika, _please,_ just open the door. Are you _okay?”_   
  
No reply but a trembling _wheeze_ from somewhere behind the door. Nobody stands up, nobody unlocks the door; Monika (because Sayori is sure it’s Monika, because nobody else can possibly also be living in a house with mold and puke and blood in everything and just _leave_ it there) remains silent and Sayori is upset and afraid enough to grit her teeth and pound her fist into the door.  
  
 **”I’ll break down this stupid door if you don’t unlock it, Monika!”**  
  
And the door was always unlocked, just in time for Sayori to see Monika lunging at absolutely _nothing,_ right over the edge of her bed.  
  
...  
  
Monika is vaguely annoyed to find that she didn’t break her neck.  
  
Once she’s conscious again, that is. She’s far past the point of being embarrassed that she’s regaining blurry sight on the floor, face in just the right position to be beneath the ceiling fan. Sayori probably rolled her here while she was out. Something cold and disgusting splashes onto her face intermittently, stiff feet dangle an inch or two away from her nose, and Monika thinks longingly about the broken neck she didn’t manage to get. It figures. Sayori always goes back to this once Monika actually decides to snap back at her. Like she was trying to make Monika feel bad for standing up for herself. Well, joke’s on you, Sayori; she already does.

But now that Sayori’s like this, she doesn’t want to get back up. Putting her head through legs rigid with rigor mortis just made her feel even more like vomiting than usual, to be perfectly frank. Tilting her head to the side to escape the constant dribble of death-fluid and excrement and nursing her burgeoning headache via fitful, carpet-based sleep seems to be her best option.   
  
Until she sees Sayori’s legs, standing very solidly on the ground next to her, and remembers what is happening.   
  
“Fuck,” she says, absolutely eloquently.    
  
Processing what Sayori is saying would be far too much effort for her right now, really; dazed, neck bruising, literally being pissed on. Not literally. Literally? She raises her hand clumsily to her cheek and wipes at it, and judging by Sayori’s expression, it’s definitely not literal. Fuck. That figures.    
  
“Don’t turn on the fan,” she slurs, dropping her arm over her eyes with a groan. Too much effort. Too much effort. Sayori would go away once she realizes this is all too much effort.   
  
The dripping doesn’t stop.

...   
  
There isn’t a ceiling fan in Monika’s bedroom.   
  
There isn’t any kind of fan in Monika’s bedroom at all, in fact - but especially not one on the ceiling. The completely unadorned ceiling, which Monika has been staring half-lidded at for half a minute before mumbling absolute nonsense, wiping at her entirely dry face in undisguised disgust, tilting her head to the side and - sleeping? Unconscious? She probably has a concussion from how soundly she whacked her head on the floor. She shouldn’t be sleeping.   
  
The ceiling fan.   
  
Monika doesn’t have a fan.   
  
Yuri doesn’t have a fan.   
  
Sayori’s friend doesn’t have a fan.   
  
Natsuki, most likely, doesn’t have a fan.   
  
Sayori has a fan.   
  
Sayori pushes on Monika’s shoulder, insistent, jostles until glassy green eyes rest blearily on Sayori’s expression which she is sure isn’t very composed. Monika shouldn’t be sleeping and Monika grimaces,  _ whines. _   
  
“S’yori stopit, gonna... don’t wake’r up,” she  _ begs, _ “Pl’se don’t wake’r up. S-Shhh, hh. Stop it,”   
  
“Monika,  _ please _ wake up,” Sayori whispers -   
  
But, unfortunately, Monika already has.


	4. factory reset

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops! here's the first chapter where i'll let y'all vote (catch it in the end notes); this is the first bit of an AU that i've done a lot more writing for but i have nervous cold feet about actually posting. so here's the deal - if you guys like it and want to see more of it, i'll take this chap down and post it along with allllll the rest of the bananas in an actual separate fic. and if you don't like it i'll leave this single chapter here forever to showcase my BURNING SHAME.
> 
> Angst Level: like a one if you squint REALLY HARD
> 
> AU?: AU where Monika and Sayori have reality-altering powers; AU where Monika accidentally magics herself into a tiny baby toddler. oh yes. you understand my INCREDIBLE fucking embarrassment here
> 
> Warnings?: de-aging, Natsuki says FUCK but NOT WHERE MONIKA'S INNOCENT EARS CAN HEAR HER (even though Monika's still swearing in her head listen it's hard to be Tiny)

“You know, Monnie, if you keep scowling like that, your face’ll be stuck~!”   
  
_ Good, _ Monika thinks, somehow managing to glower even harder. She probably would have said it, and also a lot of other things that may or may not have been very rude, but as it happened, her mouth was occupied.   
  
“Hey, hey! Don’t do that, hon— I, er. Monnie,” Sayori stammers, gently prying the two small fingers Monika was  _ chomping _ on away from her mouth. “Doesn’t that hurt?”   
  
It wasn’t like the rest of her hand didn’t already hurt, anyway. The only thing that could possibly make “waking up disoriented on the floor of your clubroom looking like a  _ baby” _ any worse - wait, no, tack on “and totally unable to access your awe-inspiring reality altering powers” - was, for some reason she  _ absolutely _ could not figure out, having her hand throbbing in pain. It was actually, probably, the second worst thing that has ever happened to her in her long and storied life.   
  
“Hey, c’mon!”   
  
And Sayori’s pulling her fingers back down  _ again. _ Nevermind that Monika can’t exactly remember putting them back in, listen - as  _ much _ as she appreciates the ridiculous helicoptering, can she not, within her rights as a person, have three minutes to herself that may or may not include biting her hand? Is biting her hand, really,  _ in the grand scheme of how this day was going, _ something to be worried about?   
  
“... pacifier,” Sayori says, sort of to herself, and Monika removes her fingers from between her teeth for the third time with a flush.

_ ”No!” _   
  
“You  _ can _ talk!” Exclaims the peach-haired girl, to which Monika  _ glowers. _ “... okay, okay. Look, Mons, you can’t just chomp on your hand. It’s, like... unsanitary?”   
  
“No!”   
  
“That hand was  _ definitely _ on the ground sometime today. In the clubroom. Don’t you know the kind of stuff we drop in the clubroom?”   
  
“...”   
  
Sayori looks at Monika expectantly.   
  
“... cu’bbakes,” Monika grumbles, now glaring mostly at the ground of the— ughhhh,  _ baby store— _ and Sayori,  _ goddamnit Sayori, _ just bursts into an amused fit of half-bitten giggles.    
  
“Okay, okay, you’re not wrong. We do drop a lot of cupcakes,” Sayori admits. “But, like... if you get sick, and you look like you’re, like, three...”   
  
... oh.   
  
What a remarkably good point.   
  
“Plus, I don’t wanna look like a bad mom~!”   
  
Annnnd moment of clarity: gone. Granted, Monika thinks that Sayori is going to deserve a parent of the year award just for not taking one look in the classroom, wheeling around, and saying “wow, this is  _ somebody else’s problem” _ — but that definitely doesn’t have to mean she has to be even a little pleased by Sayori putting baby supplies in a cart  _ merrily, _ Monika stuck in the little basket seat, occasionally kicking her shoes back against the metal irately. She’s absolutely positive that Sayori would be  _ upset _ also, if she’d been the literal toddler in this situation, and Monika would have definitely been treating her with respect and empathy and  _ not dragging her fingers out again, goddamnit. _

“Hey, Mons? You okay?”   
  
... okay, maybe the empathy was there. Sayori doesn’t let go of her hand -  _ god, _ Monika’s whole hand fit  in half of Sayori’s - and looks, well, more worried than she has been for the past hour. More like the original worry, right after the complete disbelief and right before having a slight meltdown because now, apparently, Monika sneezing was adorable.    
  
“You look really nervous,” Sayori continues, to which Monika replies with her absolute  _ best _ complete deadpan look.    
  
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I get it. But, like. Calm down for a minute? It’s not like you’re, I dunno, on fire. And you still got me an’ Yuri an’ Nacchan, doncha? Everything’s gonna be just fine.”   
  
This, and Sayori’s hand on her head, are... slightly more comforting than she thinks it should be.   
  
“... besides, if you’re worried about someone seeing, I don’t think anyone from class is gonna be walking around in here,” Sayori grins. “Unless there’s some gossip goin’ around you didn’t tell me?”   
  
And back to you, normal Sayori. Monika lets out a huffing sigh, and maybe,  _ just _ a little, pouts.    
  
Sayori doesn’t do much but ruffle her hair, and toss another thing in the cart.

...   
  
“Here, Monnie, how ‘bout this?”   
  
‘This’, as it turned out, was putting Monika down (something she didn’t like very much,  _ not _ that she was about to mention that to Sayori) in front of a low shelf crammed full of stuffed animals. Monika hopes the look she tosses back over her shoulder can be easily read as  _ ’really.’ _   
  
“Yes, really,” says resident dry-look-interpreter Sayori, “You, lil’ miss, need something to hug so I can have all my hands back.”   
  
... damn. Maybe clinging onto Sayori’s hand after their discussion wasn’t the best idea. Then again, Sayori didn’t look mad - just... well. Sayori looked a lot of things, and it was weird for Monika to dwell on most of them, but she didn’t look  _ mad _ and that was the important part. Not to mention that being on the ground made it much easier to realize that it would be the absolute simplest thing in the world for Sayori to just turn around and  _ leave, _ and suddenly Monika feels a lot more like humoring her.    
  
So she grabs a stuffed animal, like some kind of toddler. She would like to announce that it was totally at random, so Sayori would be satisfied and pick her up and put her back in the cart and not leave her behind in the store, but that would definitely be lying. She’s allowed to be picky about textures, she thinks, somewhat defensively - she’s had a rough flippin’ morning. If she’s going to have to bury her whole face into a soft, squishy tortoise-shell and lean her whole upper body into it, it’s darn well going to be  _ minky. _   
  
“Oh, I like him,” says Sayori, running a hand lightly over the tortoise’s soft green head. “He’s got a pretty shell. D’you like him too, Monnie?”

Monika nods, face quite obscured by cuddly plush shell, to both of these questions. The tortoise’s shell is blue, which is a color Monika is very fond of for many reasons, and intermittently littered with pastel stars, which she is also fond of. If she was going to be stuck with a toy animal companion, it should at least be a toy animal companion made of things she likes. And if she likes all the things that went into the composition of the tortoise, then that was probably close enough to liking the tortoise to satisfy Sayori.  
  
Monika isn’t very much aware that, somewhere in-between Sayori casually and quietly discussing the toy tortoise while pushing the cart and the shopping being over, she’d dozed off - she blinks back into partial wakefulness, face still mushed into the plushie shell, mostly because of a light tugging on her newfound pillow, and if she wasn’t so darn _tired_ she would probably be mortified that her instinctive response is to curl her arms around it tighter and mumble “Tuw’tewl”, not least because it’s a _tortoise._   
  
“Ssh, Monnie. Masahiro’s just scanning the tag, he’s not taking Turtle.”  
  
Oh. Tur— _the tortoise_ stops being tugged and Monika _almost_ drifts back into sleep, but then what Sayori actually _said_ settles into her head more than the soft shushing and the warm hand in her hair.  
  
_Oh my god, Masahiro was in her class!_  
  
Sayori blinks at the little seizing motion Monika jerks into momentarily - watches her shove her face even further into the plush before _she_ remembers, and, well, whoops. She’s looking up with an explanation - well, several alibis and excuses and gigantic lies - already on her lips, but, Masahiro just grins guilelessly, reaching over the counter to pat Monika’s head once or twice.  
  
“Ah, yeah— discount for you, Sayori. Boss insisted,” he says, turning back to the till like this was completely normal.

“... discount?” Sayori manages, trying to resettle her face into something that isn’t completely bewildered.   
  
“Yeah, discount! ‘Cos, you know, you in school with a baby and all. Just said he wanted to help out how he could. Thinks it’s real amazin’ of you to adopt a kid that lil’ just to keep her in the family...”   
  
“...”   
  
“Sayo?”   
  
“Uh— yeah! Ehehe... well, um. You know! How it goes, and uh, yes. Yeah! Um, thanks, Masahiro. Can you tell your boss thanks from me?”   
  
“Oh, sure!” The teen beams, ducking under the counter at the exact right time to miss Sayori’s discovery that,  _ wow, _ this store was losing money on Sayori’s receipt - “Here, give this to lil’ miss sleepy over there, too. I think she’d like it.”   
  
He passes over a turtle sticker.   
  
“Oh, me too,” Sayori says, before she can catch herself - oh well. It seems true enough, and she tucks it in her pocket, offering Masahiro a smile in return. “Once she wakes up a little more, I think. Seeya later, Masahiro!”   
  
“Seeya, Sayo! Bye-e, Monika!”

...   
  
Once they actually get out of the place, Monika has the presence to lift her thoroughly red, embarrassed, one hundred percent adorable little face back out of Turtle’s shell, and Sayori might have made a comment if not for:   
  
A) Monika’s rather  _ confused and distraught _ expression, and   
  
B) Sayori’s cellphone ringing with the opening bars to Motteke! Sailor Fuku.   
  
“Natsuki, is it an emergency?” Is what Sayori says when she lifts the phone to her ear, keeping a very worried eye on Monika’s expression - and almost flinching with the volume of her friend’s — datemate’s?? — response.   
  
_ ”Yeah! _ I hope you didn’t buy the whole fuckin’ store, Sayo!”   
  
_ ”Ow, _ Nacchan,” Sayori whines, “And of course not! It just took... an hour!” She continues, pulling her phone from her ear briefly to glance at the time. “That’s a perfectly reasonable amount of time to go shopping!”   
  
“Yeah, whatever, smitten kitten,” Natsuki snorts, “The reason I told you that is— oh,  _ fuck, _ dude -  _ YURI! Holy shit, look in here!” _   
  
Natsuki yelling to Yuri, still holding the phone to her ear, is going to be the leading cause of Sayori’s tinnitus.   
  
“Nacchan, what the heck are you—“   
  
“Sayo. Babe. Hon.” Natsuki says, very suddenly, and very seriously, and Sayori is getting  _ terrible _ feelings. “You have to come look at your goddamn house. Right the fuck now, immediately.”   
  
“... my house is different?”   
  
_ “Your house is fuckin’—“ _   
“Very different, yes,” finishes Yuri in a much softer, though still incredibly strange, tone, evidently having pried the phone away from the shoutier girl. “Do you need a ride back home?”   
  
“A-A ride? Why would I... Oh.”

Another glance to the increasingly upset-looking child in the cart knocks Sayori over the head with a Fact, which is that she needs to carry the bags  _ and _ Monika home, which she  _ might _ have... forgotten about, very slightly.   
  
“... yeah, um. We need a ride, please.” Sayori continues, feeling like now is about the time to turn the phone off. “Could you, um—“   
  
“Don’t worry, I’ll be there shortly. I have relative confidence that Natsuki is in no danger of hurting herself on any errant corners, here.”   
  
... how... specific.   
  
“Yur—?”   
  
And that was that. Phone hung up, Sayori thoroughly mystified—   
  
“...”   
  
Monika... thoroughly distressed. Which was fair. That was incredibly fair, in fact. That the teller had been  _ Masahiro _ wasn’t something Sayori had been expecting, and even if - for - some perplexing reason, he had been very much under the impression that this was completely normal, it had probably embarrassed Monika and—   
  
“Y-Y— S-Saay, y, yo-owww, w, wi-ii,”   
  
And Sayori doesn’t hesitate a second - though she isn’t sure  _ why _ \- before scooping hiccupy, trembling Monika into her arms, mystery momentarily set aside in favor of drying little eyes before all the dangerously teetering tears could start to fall.   
  
...   
  
Yuri pulls into the parking lot to find Sayori swaying lightly, arms very occupied with drowsing, tiny Monika and -   
  
“Turtle?”   
  
\- and Sayori has an inkling of what Natsuki had been whooping and hollering about from the moment her eyes alight on the five-point harness nestled in the backseat of Yuri’s car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO-THIRDS OF YOU WANT TO SEE THE REST OF THE BABY AU BS AND SO I WILL POST IT. to the remaining one-thirds: sorry babies are cute i guess

**Author's Note:**

> tip the author with comments, if you really want to make me like, squeal incoherently and clutch my phone and feel happiness in my heartplace :')


End file.
